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Product description ------------------- Fly against the evil Empire! As Luke Skywalker, co-founder of the Rebel Alliance's elite Rogue Squadron, you must combat the evil Galactic Empire! Engage in intense, fast-paced planetary air-to-ground and air-to-air missions - dogfights, search and destroy, reconnaissance, bombing runs, rescue assignments and more! Pilot X-wings, Y-wings, A-wings, V-wings and Snowspeeders with powerful weapons in over 15 missions battling TIE fighters, TIE bombers, Imperial shuttles, AT-AT walkers, AT-STs and other challenging foes. .com ---- It is a time soon after the destruction of the first Death Star. Luke Skywalker has formed a squadron of hot- pilots to engage the still-formidable Imperial forces. You, as Luke, must lead this rogue squadron in a series of galaxy-spanning raids and rescues. To complete all your missions, you'll need good flying skills, fast reflexes, a keen eye, and a quick trigger finger. You get to fly all your favorite ships: The X-wing, Y-wing, snowspeeder--even the Millennium Falcon. There are also some "secret" ships, such as the sleek Naboo Starfighter ( /exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000J2F0/%24%7B0%7D )from Star Wars: Episode I, The Phantom Menace ( /exec/obidos/ASIN/0439087066/%24%7B0%7D ), a TIE interceptor, and, um, a '78 Buick. The flight simulation in this game is first-rate. You'll find yourself leaning to the side as you pull a high-G turn in pursuit of Imperial TIE fighters. And the outstanding graphics and sounds are realistic enough to transport you to the Star Wars universe. Every detail is in place, right down to the individual Stormtroopers you can see running around (and trying to shoot you). One of the more impressive sequences lets you bring down Imperial Walkers by using the tow cables on your snowspeeder. Nice touch. This is a single-player game, but you start each mission with a few wingmen from your squadron, and the well-done spoken dialogue between pilots and commanders really makes you feel like part of a team. The only significant shortcoming is the lack of a cooperative multiplayer option. With its excellent gameplay, varied environments, and interesting missions, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron is sure to become a long-time favorite. --Eric Fredrickson Pros: * Faithful to lots of Star Wars details * Satisfying flight action, explosions, sound effects * Interesting missions and plot * See--and fight over--the Spice mines of Kessel and other famous Star Wars planets Cons:* For some reason, you can only fly clockwise when bringing down a Walker * No "easy" setting for those without The Force * Voices of Luke, Wedge, and Han don't sound like the real thing P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); Review ------ Remember the first level of Shadows of the Empire? Remember thinking "Gee, if only the rest of the game were like this, this game would actually be good"? LucasArts heard you and developed an entire game based around the concept. Of course, spending an entire game in the snowspeeder, fighting AT-ATs, is something better left to that old Atari 2600 game, so some more modes of transport have been tossed in to spruce things up. You play as Luke Skywalker (finally, no Dash Rendars or Kyle Katarns in ) who leads the Rogue Squadron against the Empire. The game has a very movie-like quality to it, mostly thanks to a lot of voice work and in-game cinemas. The game plays like an action-packed Wing Commander game sans all of the crazy controls. Auto-leveling keeps you from cing and allows you to get a firm grasp on the control quickly and easily. Once you've gotten the hang of flying the craft, you can disable it. Each of the ships has varying armor and weapon strengths. In addition, the ships maneuver differently, making one type more suited for some missions than others. The missions are composed of rescue missions, defense, escorting ships, and striking targets. Some missions require pinpoint accuracy when shooting, while some require that you simply lay waste to everything that you encounter. This mix of levels really keeps the pace of the game fresh and exciting. In each level you can earn one of three medals. Your performance throughout the level decides which, if any, of the three medals you'll receive. If you collect all three medals on every level in the game you will be handsomely rewarded. The visuals get a great boost from Nintendo's new RAM upgrade accessory. When using the RAM pack, the game plays in a much higher resolution. The textures of the landscapes, the ships, the lighting effects - everything looks so much better. Without the upgrade, the game looks OK but not nearly as nice. Whether you're playing with the upgrade or not, the game does unfortunately suffer from one major visual flaw: The pop-up is horrendous. Every object in the game is drawn in at an incredibly short distance from your view. This at first seems like a really bad thing, but after spending any a of time with the game you nearly forget all about it since most of the time you are generally focused on what's right in front of you and your radar. Rogue Squadron has a ton of speech for an N64 game. Each mission has a briefing to listen to before you go into battle. Then during the action there are voice commands indicating what you have to do next. Plus there's a lot of chatter from the rest of your squadron. All of the voices sound fairly decent and really draw you into the game. Once there, the incredible sound effects, like the scream of TIE fighters zooming past you with their s blazing, really sound terrific. The game also makes good use of stereo effects. The only thing in the audio department that Rogue Squadron lacks is quality music. Sure, its Star Wars stuff, but the actual quality of it doesn't sound very good. Overall, Rogue Squadron is a good mission-based shooter. Fans of the film will be pleased with the good usage of the Star Wars universe. Being able to fly by Jabba's palace, over Sarlacc, or to see Han Solo's homeworld is really a treat. Any fan of the first level of Shadows of the Empire really should check out Rogue Squadron. --Ryan Mac Donald --Copyright ©1999 GameSpot Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of GameSpot is prohibited. GameSpot and the GameSpot logo are trademarks of GameSpot Inc. -- GameSpot Review See more ( javascript:void(0) )